The Council of Conservative Citizens is very angry, and is calling for a boycott of an upcoming movie that offends their values. The CofCC is a paleoconservative organization which has as its first principle the myth that the United States is a Christian country, so you might think that the reason it objects to the Marvel superhero movie Thor is that it promotes a pagan religion. You'd be wrong. They're upset because Marvel Studios has declared war on Norse mythology, which you'd think they'd consider a good thing, except that it violates another of their principles, that America is supposed to be a white country.

You see, Marvel cast Idris Elba, a black man, to play the god Heimdall.

I'm not going to go into a huge thing here about how it's a comic book... and that they recast black guys as white guys all the time when they go to the screen (Nick Fury, anyone?), but I am going to ask Ragnar for a clarification... I thought Heimdall was known as "The White"... I assume it's not a reference to skin colour, so what did that designation actually signify?

Trying to create a world, even in words, is good occupational therapy for lunatics who think they're God, and an excellent argument for Polytheism. -S.M. Stirling

Friday night I was talking to a friend, and the conversation turned to a link I had posted about the racial casting controversy in the new Thor movie; briefly summarized, one of the Norse gods in the upcoming movie is played by Idris Elba, a black actor, and there are some very racist people getting very humorously upset about it. My friend agreed that these people were obviously morons, but then he raised a profoundly fascinating question: isn’t this casting issue with Thor more or less the same as last year’s casting issue with The Last Airbender? In both cases, a character who originated as one race was being portrayed by an actor of a different race, and yet in one instance we’re all cool with it and in another instance it sparks a worldwide argument. Why the difference? At the risk of making everyone on the Internet hate me, I’m going to take a look at that question today. So: why is it okay to wish Aang was asian, and not okay to wish Heimdal was white?

Trying to create a world, even in words, is good occupational therapy for lunatics who think they're God, and an excellent argument for Polytheism. -S.M. Stirling